


Masquerading as a Man with a Reason

by TinyButFierce



Series: The Word I'm Looking For [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Drunk Tony Stark, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Hand wavy science, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, MIT Era, One Shot, Ramen Noodles, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 12:49:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15243735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinyButFierce/pseuds/TinyButFierce
Summary: The noodle incident





	Masquerading as a Man with a Reason

**Author's Note:**

> I got a ton of requests for this so here you go.
> 
> If you haven't read the first two parts of the series, you may want too, but this could stand alone.
> 
> Lot's of thanks to RecklessDaydreamer for beta-ing this!
> 
> The noodle incident is based off of Calvin & Hobbes.
> 
> Title is from Carry on Wayward Son by Kansas

Rhodey would like to say that his 15 year old roommate was quiet and spent the weekends diligently studying and not causing havoc across campus. 

He would like to say it hadn’t become his job to wrangle a hungover teenager to their morning classes, dragging him out of whatever hole he found himself in and pumping him full of unreasonable amounts of coffee.

He would like to say that Tony remembered things that had happened the night before, instead of unhelpful snippets of information.

Monday mornings were the worst for the two MIT students. They both had an 8 o’clock class that consisted of the professor playing with equipment while everyone took notes and tried to not fall asleep.

Rhodey settled Tony in a seat towards the back of the classroom and the teen slide sunglasses onto his face and guzzled down coffee. 

The other students filtered into the class and the sound of chatter filled the room.

Tony looked towards Rhodey and whacked his arm.

“Hey. Do you have any food on you?”

Rhodey glared at the teen. “I have a singular granola bar that will act as my breakfast because unlike someone, I actually care about my well being. Besides, I’m sure you ate something last night, right?”

Tony made a groaning noise. “I vaguely remember making ramen noodles… but I don’t think I ate them?”

“Is that all you remember?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Before Rhodey could respond, the professor walked into the room and the students fell silent. 

“Good morning, class. I’m in the mood to get this started right away, how about you?”

Murmurs of assent were vocalized.

“Great.”

The professor gestured towards the equipment that was set up to the side of the classroom and began to ramble about some type of chemistry experiment that could only be done in a clean environment.

The professor grabbed a beaker full of water and prepared to pour it into the equipment.

Tony sat up in alarm, obviously remembering something.

He turned to look at Rhodey and whispered, “Sodium!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Sodium!”

At that moment, the teacher poured the water into the equipment and, much to his surprise, white gas started to pour out of the top with the sound of an explosion.

The explosion caused the equipment to dismantle and start rolling around the room.

The sprinklers began to go off as students started grabbing things and running out of the room while the alarm blared, only worsening Tony’s hangover.

The professor grabbed a fire extinguisher and sprayed the room with it, stopping the fire. Unfortunately, he wasn’t fast enough to stop the alarms. The whole room became crowded with students evacuating the premise.

Tony and Rhodey went along with the panicking students and joined the crowd outside, watching while the fire trucks pulled up and swarmed the building.

One of the higher up professors called for the attention of the crowd.

“Due to the… incident, you are free for the rest of the day. But, I would like to say that, whoever did this, we will be looking over the security tapes to discover the culprit.”

Rhodey looked over at Tony, who gulped nervously.

He grabbed Tony’s arm and pulled him away from the crowd who watched the firemen assessing the condition of the building.

Dragging him limply back to their dorm room, he locked the door behind them and crossed his arms, glaring at the teen who flopped down onto his bed.

“Did you have anything to do with this?”

“No.”

“Then why did you whisper about sodium for no reason?”

“Uhhh.”

“I’m going to ask again. Did you have anything to do with this?”

“Mayyybe?”

Rhodey sat down on his bed and sighed, steepling his fingers under his chin.

Tony sighed and flipped around so that his head was resting on his pillow. He suddenly frowned and sat up, looking down at the pillow.

Rhodey noticed the action and raised an eyebrow.

“What is it, Tones?”

“Uhh, there’s something under there.”

The teen reached down and lifted the pillow up, revealing an object that both students paused and stared at in shock.

“Tony… are those the security tapes?”

“Ummmm…”

“Did you… did you steal the security tapes?”

“Looks like it.”

“We’re watching them.”

Much to Tony’s protest, Rhodey did, in fact, manage to set up an apparatus to watch the tapes.

It happened like this.

A very drunk, teenage, Tony Stark managed to wander into the lab, thinking that it was the kitchen in their dorm room.

He then proceeded to try and cook a lot of ramen within the very apparatus that the professor was going to use the next day.

After finally figuring out that the equipment he had dumped the ramen in, was not, in fact, a microwave or a stove, Tony left it there.

Instead of cleaning up his mess, in his infinite wisdom, he decided to steal the security tapes that showed the incident very clearly.

A single serving of ramen noodles has about 875 mg of sodium in it. Sodium in its pure form reacts explosively in the presence of water.

The equipment that Tony had dumped the ramen into was one whose job it is to separate components of mixtures into pure form. 

Therefore, the sodium that had been separated out from the ramen had exploded and started to burn in the presence of the water that the professor had poured into the equipment.

After viewing the tapes, Tony proceeded to smash them with a hammer and incinerate them. 

The MIT staff never did figure out what happened, aside from the slight odor of cooking ramen noodles that stayed for weeks.

Rhodey vowed to never forget the incident.

He never knew when he would need to embarrass Tony in the future.

In the meantime, he confiscated Tony’s stash of ramen noodles. He will also admit to holding the incident over his head whenever the teen got an idea that was particularly bad.

It’s always good to have some blackmail.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Comments and kudos keep me writing! :)


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